I’ve said it before, and I still think it’s true:
Mass Rez was a horrible ult on Mercy. When she was originally envisioned, nobody knew how powerful mobility would be which is the primary problem.
If Mercy is stuck in the middle of her team during the teamfight, they have the option to focus her down before Mass Rez can be used for a big rez. There is a give and take in this situation where you can either force out a much smaller rez that is easily countered by an ultimate of your own, or you can kill her before rez is used and win the point altogether.
Mercy’s mobility negated that give and take by allowing her to “hide” out of danger and then GA into her dead team for an instant rez that negated all enemy resources used to kill them.
As long as the give and take of “Will I be alive long enough to get one more person back up if I wait or should I rez right now?” exists, mass rez is balancable.
I think Mass Rez would work on a non-shield disruption/survival tank. Someone who has a lot of health and is a huge target, but can make him/herself very hard to kill without feeding a disadvantageous amount of ult charge.
This core design feeds into the natural give-and-take of a mass rez ability by anchoring a line, but not having the ability to either hide & seek, or provide safety to allies with a safe health buffer like Rein’s or Orisa’s shield.
This would be a pure “value tank” where you target them over other squishier targets due to the inherent value of mass rez, and they would bring value to their team outside of the rez ultimate through low steady damage combined with disruptive abilities (because high damage + damage reduction + high health would just be a nightmare. Damage, health, utility: pick two)
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that basically summarizes it. it feels worse to have your progress undone (rez) rather than to have your progress blocked (trans, beat drop, etc)
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My only gripe with Valkyrie is, I dont see it having a place in Overwatch, it’s not very helpful, it doesn’t do anything to turn the tides of a fight, it just feels pointless/useless. The only reason a Mercy should use it is to make an escape and regroup with her team.
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I’ve said this several times, both here and on a few YT videos. Even when Mass Rezz was extremely weak (which is pretty much at any point before the immunity), it felt frustrating to play against, not because it was overpowered, but because our brains are made in such a way that it makes you feel happy when you do things correctly, but it charges frustration on you if after making you happy you think something erased your progress.
Truth is, those times you just forgot about Mercy and tunnel visioned too hard, but your brain will almost never admit that and will make you think that is unfair, overpowered and has no counterplay.
But we can’t be balancing around player frustration. Otherwise, Doomfist, Sombra and Brigitte would have to be entirely reworked, or removed.
Numbers say old Mercy was balanced, while new Mercy’s kit is an unbalanced kit that either is a must or trash pick, and has remained like that for about a year I think? Besides, there are so many new tools to zone out old Mercy now that Mass Rezzes would be even less frequent now (And they were already pretty rare). Thanks to that, enemy frustration would be somewhat lower, and Mercy’s frustration would be significantly higher when trying to pull a 5-man. This will, in turn, teach low level Mercy players to not to try Mass Rezzes unless they’re feeling extremely lucky or the odds are entirely in your favor.
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Hide and rez was the reason wasn’t it? Mercy shouting at her team to kill themselves so she could push shift then Q. It had no delay either and made her invulnerable before they removed it so it was the only instantaneous ult in the game and it was super ultra powerful. (as in it starts instantly and its entire effect happens all at once.)
IDK if it was unbalanced or not I’ve kind of forgotten what that was like.
Hide and rez was cause of Blizzard’s bad system at the time and wasn’t cause of mass rez.
I never shouted at my team to die on point but most of teams I played on did. Besides if a Mercy is hiding you’re giving away what you’re planning to do so it could backfire. The problem with mass rez was people threw everything and the kitchen sink without a thought of maybe the Mercy might rez them back.
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That’s largely irrelevant. Investors don’t give a damn about the actual gameplay, they care about controversy because it generates views.
If anything, players getting angry over Mercy Rez would make investors happy. Upsets becoming common means viewership is on the edge of their seats looking to be entertained by spectacle instead of finding out who is the best.
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All I can say is to each his own. I found Mass Rez enjoyable. Kept everyone on their toes making you aware of your surroundings and calculate every move you make. Then eventually it just got turned into a meme and then hated on.
“It feels bad when we push Q and then they push Q. Please remove their Q because my Q should always be better.”
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Or we could avoid any kind of ult Rez mechanic.
~Truely Yours xoxo,
A Defender, And Backbone Of The Team.
Tank Mains Unite! 
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Mass Rez was still a fake out mechanic.
I think that alone is enough for the devs to never return to it. It’s one of those game design aspects you’re not supposed to do to players.
~Truely Yours xoxo,
A Defender, And Backbone Of The Team.
Tank Mains Unite!
1 Like
Exactly, even though she was only ever played with Pharah because mass res was one of the most counterable ults in high tiers, watching Mercy in pro games stay alive through enemy ultimates and then res a few teammates and keep the fight going was amazing. Now Mercy hides behind a wall and takes 2 seconds to res someone while other teammates aren’t getting healed…so fun to watch.
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Mass res without invulnerability made Mercy a trash pick, even in lower tiers because even if she did res she would instantly die. With invulnerability, the smallest slither of coordination would render Mercy useless as teams in diamond and above were able to coordinate enough to know when Mercy would res or see that there are only 5 enemies and wouldn’t use ultimates because they could win a 5v6 when their main healer wasn’t there. Mercy was slightly broken but it was nothing that couldn’t be fixed, even if every single Mercy in the game hid there were a multitude of fixes to prevent it. Mercy right now is really unfixable, even small buffs will change nothing as she’s in a fundamentally broken spot were her skill ceiling and skill floor and almost exactly the same. In fact, Mercy’s in lower tiers are usually able to pull of more reses then those in high tiers. There’s just very little distinction between skill among Mercy’s anymore and it’s the thing that frustrates me the most, if I poured 600 hours into someone like Sym I could get good at them and climb, right now that’s impossible as Mercy.
Edit: it’s the just the human psyche that makes people think res was a ‘fake out’ ability, it was almost entirely balanced. Sledgehammer nerfed Ana was a better pick in higher ranks over Mercy even with invulnerability res, because she actually had utility while Mercy did very little outside res. Let’s also not forget that 85% of the player base is below diamond and that Mercy is a huge pillar of the accessible hero roster, Mercy right now is just a mess.
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THANK YOU. god valk is awful but so is mass rez. i don’t like either of them really tbh.
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I’d question if that’s the real reason or if that’s the reason people have decided to use after the fact.
Mercy had Mass Res since launch.
I do not recall massive amounts of complaints dropping until Blizzard made changes that knocked down the appeal/viability of playing two of the three other healing supports with their changes to Lucio and the nerfs to Ana.
Design complaints come when a hero is too common for too long. We’ll keep playing musical chairs of complaints until Blizzard stops playing balance musical chairs with abrupt changes that have been poorly tested.
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Well I never said if I thought it was balanced but human psyche is part of game design. They have to make the game in a way that appeals to people playing it. So saying it’s a fake out mechanic because of the human psyche is perfectly reasonable.
~Truely Yours xoxo,
A Defender, And Backbone Of The Team.
Tank Mains Unite!
2 Likes
Y’know…I’ll agree with this. Well thought out post, good sir.
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Completely redesigning a hero, making them completely overpowered for 6 months then dominate the rest of the support heroes of another 6 months then to end up a trash pick where her winrate (not pick rate, Ana’s actually 2% higher) intercepts with Ana’s in gold - meaning they both are equally as good, one of the most highly skilled heroes in the game versus the least IN GOLD - is NOT at all reasonable, especially since that hero was almost entirely balanced. Just as someone mentioned before if game design was about human psyche heroes like Brigitte and Doomfist would be outright removed from the game instead of actually added to the game after release. Please don’t try and turn a personal vendetta against mass res into a ‘perfectly reasonable’ argument, it was frustrating to play against at times but nothing that couldn’t be fixed without completely dismantling the character’s kit.
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You’re stuck writing paragraphs on balance while I never even mentioned balance. I simply said that Mass Rez was not liked because it was a fake out mechanic which will never be welcomed. It could be completely balanced but that would not mean it wasn’t anti player.
You talking about win rates, redesigned into a “trash pick” etc really holds no value on what I’m addressing. You’re just angry.
And you know what doom fist and Bridget don’t do? They don’t make the player think they accomplished something then snatch it away. That will ALWAYS be bad game design.
her ult should have prevented death, not give the satisfaction of a kill then take it away. It’s the best feeling for a Mercy player but nobody else
~Truely Yours xoxo,
A Defender, And Backbone Of The Team.
Tank Mains Unite!
2 Likes
You clearly mentioned game design.
The only reason to change a character so drastically is because of balance (like re-working trash tier heroes), not because of a mechanic that didn’t work smoothly but could be fixed to make more enjoyable for everyone. If mass res was such an issue then why was it almost never talked about for nearly a year since the game’s until a certain Internet personality made a video and started a with hunt on Mercy. Clearly reworking a balanced character is NOT a viable option as everyone had to experience for an entire year.
Clearly res is frustrating, but if it was such a issue then why was Mercy changed after such a long time since release? Why was res even created in the first place since the devs know game design so well? Because it was a fresh and interest ability, it gave millions of players access to a type of game they never played before or never were good at. It only became a problem when this witch hunt started and she became monumental problem for a year after her rework.
And saying words like ‘snatch’ only proves my argument that it’s a personal vendetta. How about, playing a highly mobile hero that can easily kill the most defenseless character in the game, saving ultimates, seeing the enemy Mercy is not around and grav barraging even though they would die without ultimates because their main healer isn’t there to heal them? How about adding new abilities in the game like molten core, wrecking ball ult, buffed Sombra and a new main healer to render Mercy less annoying? Too bad, maybe abilities like mass res are too evolved for a game like this.
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You sound so sure that I have a personal vendetta against mercy although I enjoy playing her. Snatch is a fitting word when all the other support ults are preventative while Mercy just let you die to pick you up again. Mass Rez was always a badly designed ult. It didn’t get traction until invulnerability while rezing. It wasn’t a witch hunt. It was a bad ult that took a step too far and got caught in the spotlight.
You know people complain constantly that the devs don’t know what they’re doing. They even say that they fix problems as they arise after seeing how things play out.
You can’t say mass Rez was the sole thing that got millions of people to play a game they normally wouldn’t like it was some divine blessing to gaming. It wasn’t. Mercy’s play style maybe or just the diversity of the game but don’t give mass Rez credit it doesn’t deserve.
I think you can already see that my OP make sense and there’s no point trying to convince you further. Mass Rez was anti player and I gave good reasons why it was disliked and why it won’t be coming back.
Feel free to comment your “you know I’m right and can’t prove me wrong” but I’m done here. There’s not benifit or middle road here.
~Truely Yours xoxo,
A Defender, And Backbone Of The Team.
Tank Mains Unite! 